Salame Pizza

I have a love hate relationship with Trader Joe's. I love how cheap it is. I hate the parking lot. I love the organic maple syrup and stuffed olives. I hate their pizza dough. Mostly because it's (at least) as good as mine. I hate being shown up by the -- what does Michael Pollan call it . . . "the industrial food complex?" . . . "the military industrial complex?" . . . I hate that anybody's pre-packaged anything is as good (at least) as my home made. I used to make batches of dough and package them in the freezer for unexpected pizza moments. These days -- though I am loathe to admit it -- we usually have a package of Trader Joe's fresh pizza dough (white or garlic herb) in the fridge. The shame of it all. Sigh.

In spite of my culinary dishonor I have to admit, dough in the fridge makes for an easy weeknight dinner.

One of my New Year's resolutions for 2009 was to learn to make Salami. There were also a few cheese, education and gym related ones that I more or less lived up to, but the clock is ticking on 2009 salami. So far I'm just eating more of it, and a near forgotten link in the fridge made the surprise topping on this pie.

I piled on thinly sliced potatoes (very thin cut with a mandoline), red onions, garlic, thin rounds of salami (I mean pepperoni is just a salami after all), chopped parsley, and a good dousing of olive oil. I topped it all with sliced mozzarella and popped the assembled pie onto our pizza stone preheated to 500º. After 10 minutes I covered the top with shredded romano cheese and popped it back in the oven for 5 minutes.

Another weeknight quicker than carry-out meal . . . thanks to Trader Joe's (Grr).